Plot

Summaries

A married woman realizes how unhappy her marriage really is, and that her life needs to go in a different direction. After a painful divorce, she takes off on a round-the-world journey to "find herself".

Liz Gilbert (Roberts) had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having - a husband, a house, a successful career - yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali.

Writer Elizabeth Gilbert has reached a crisis of faith in her life. Without her husband Stephen realizing it, they have arrived at different and diverging places in their life, which leads to her admitting that she wants out of the marriage. Following Liz and Stephen's divorce, Liz immediately jumps into a relationship with actor, David Piccolo, who she meets literally while he is performing in a stage play. After spending time with David, she realizes that she is her biggest problem, and that she needs to find herself. Partly based on earlier foretellings of a Balinese medicine man, Liz maps out her next year, which will be spent in three places. The first is Italy to learn Italian and regain her love of food, which has now become more a matter a sustenance. The second is India at the ashram of David's yogi to achieve some spiritual peace in her life. And third is Indonesia to reconnect with the medicine man Ketut Liyer to see if he can provide any more insights into her life. Although she sticks to her geographic plan, she often experiences things along the way she didn't expect. But everything she worked so hard for to achieve that much needed balance in life over the year may all be lost by the end of her stay in Indonesia.